We spend our warm, sunny summer days in the beautiful English countryside. The boys continue with their home-education on picnic blankets and under trees because we are English and we know that the opportunities we have to bask in the vitalising rays of the sun are fleeting. Summer, however brief, is to be as fun filled and enjoyable as possible.
Here are five of our favourite free outdoor summer activites.
1. Chasing butterflies.
There is seldom anything as wonderful as the sound of giggling children on a sunny summers day and this activity always results in hysterical laughter from my boys. All you need is a net and a flowery field, park or garden. My children have on two occasions actually caught a butterfly but it isn't the catching that is the fun part, it is the hopeless chase that really raises a smile.
2. Tree history.
This is a great activity which can lead to some history studies as well. You need a piece of tracing paper or grease proof paper, a wax crayon, a bit of sandpaper and a tree stump. This really is an activity to be saved for a woodland adventure as you need to find a tree stump. Once you have located a good specimen then your child can spend a bit of time sanding the dirt, moss and other things off the top off the stump before taking a wax rubbing of the tree. The rubbing will reveal the annual rings which can then be used to tell the age of the tree. If you are lucky enough to know when the tree was chopped down you can spend a few days adding the years to the rings on the rubbing and finding out what the local area might have looked like during different time periods. Our recent attempt at this activity gave us a sixty year old tree which we are currently using as the basis for some local history work. Even if you don't build on the history activities, just looking at the rings on the tree is engaging and fun.
3. Kite making and flying.
This is so much fun. A kite can quickly be made from an old plastic bag, a couple of wooden skewers and a bit of string. All you need to do is cut a diamond shape out of the plastic and then attach two skewers in the shape of a cross in the middle and secure them to the plastic with tape. The long, long piece of string can then be tied to the centre of the cross with the other end being wrapped around a piece of cardboard. It is so easy that a kite can be made in a couple of minutes which means that if one gets stuck in a tree another one can quickly be made to replace it - no more tears. Flying their very own home-made kite is incredible fun. My boys have spent hours recently flying their kites and never tire of the activity.
4. Bark rubbing.
My children enjoy identifying trees and this activity is a great way of doing this. You need a few sheets of paper, wax crayons and accsess to plenty of trees. The children just take rubbings from various tree barks and then identify them later at home. It keeps my boys entertained for hours.
5 . In the den.
Pretending to have your own secret agent hide-out, military operations rendezvous or mysterious super hero base is probably one of the best games a child can enjoy in the open air so building and playing in a den during the summer months is a must-do activity. I explained how we made one of our dens on previous post which you can read here but really all you need is a big pile of branches, twigs, fern or conifer leaves for insulation and camouflage, sometimes a bit of string to tie things together and lots of time. The bigger the kid, the more ambitious the design so planing before hand can sometimes be useful.
We all have lots of fun with these activites but there is one thing which we all simply adore. Just sitting with a good book, on a blanket, with a bite to eat under the protective branches of a beautiful, friendly, old tree. No matter what energetic outdoor adventure we have tried my boys will always find a good spot under a leafy tree to spread out the picnic blanket, lie down and read - now that's what I call summer!
Have you tried any of these activities? Do you have another favourite outdoor summer activity? I would love to hear from you.
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